doesn't bite

5 Activities in Taman Negara

If I would have to name my absolute favourite place out of all my travels up until now, I would say Taman Negara straight away. In retrospect, I think I could spend months or even years there. Nonetheless, Will and I had only two days to explore the area. Based on our experiences, let’s see what people can choose to do here by themselves, without a tour guide, almost for free.

1. Hike to Bukit Teresek // Túrázz a Bukit Teresek csúcsra

Bukit Teresek is a 344m high hilltop 1.7km away from the Mutiara Taman Negara Resort. The distance seems to be short, but the regular stops caused by looking around, taking photos and trying to survive in the tropical heat make the progress significantly slower. Once you reach the viewpoint, you can enjoy the breathtaking panorama: on a clear day you can even see Gunung Tahan, the highest point in Peninsular Malaysia.

Because the official guided tours leave around 9am, we decided to depart much earlier in order to avoid the loud groups. After leaving our hut, we turned to the right and plunged into the depths of the rainforest full of tall trees and long creepers. The path is very easy to follow: you have to walk either on a wooden footbridge and staircase system or on the roots of the trees.

Because there wasn’t a single soul around us, we could enjoy the sounds of the jungle without being disturbed by anyone. One of the most distinctive sounds in Taman Negara is the tireless hoot of the Indian Cuckoo: it always starts the sentence with a deep voice and finishes it high-pitched. Cuckoos tend to form a choir by singing at the same time and making the whole forest echo.

Additionally, you can also hear the part of the cicadas. These almost-invisible little “bastards” make the rainforest sound like the surgery of thousands of busy dentists without a single empty slot in their schedule. Initially, you can’t really tell what is it that bothers you and you only realise the root cause of your annoyance once the cicadas go quiet for a moment. By the time you would sigh of relief, they recommence.

While you walk around the forest, you’ll also notice a very loud sizzling-cracking noise. It sounds exactly like the exploding candy eaten with open mouth. We spent quite some time looking for the source of this sound before Will managed to work out the secret: massive termite-armies were walking around us, chewing and carrying stuff. They were flowing through the gates of their giant termite castles like the slaves of the old roman cities. The workers are the smaller ones, their duty is to collect food. The soldiers, on the other hand, are twice as big and their job is to protect the workers by lining up around them as a wall. During the hike people have to pay serious attention to the termite-carpets, because stepping in between these creatures can be a painful experience.

This rainforest is home for several large mammals, such as elephants, tigers, leopards and wild boars. They are all roaming freely, which means that theoretically they can approach you on the walkway at any point in time. Fortunately, they prefer to avoid the places visited by people. If your only reason for coming to Taman Negara is to see these creatures, then you chose the wrong place. However, it is highly likely that you meet lots of colourful butterflies who will happily land on your skin in order to lick some sweat-drops off.

The other very frequent creature is the spider. You’ll see many different types: tiny or giant, long- or short-legged, with round or elongated abdomen. Their common characteristic is that they always manage to choose the most inconvenient place for building a net, so if you’re not careful, you’ll walk into it straight with your face.

After a few hours of exploring and taking photos, we finally reached the first look-out that has a panoramic view towards the Tembeling river. It’s only “towards” because the thick greenery prevents people from seeing the water.

From here the peak of the Bukit Teresek hill can be reached within 10 minutes.

A Bukit Teresek csúcsig már csak további 10 percet kell sétálni.

Bukit Teresek

If you decide to do this hike, make sure to pack a big bottle of water and some lifesaver snacks because you won’t find any shops or diners in the rainforest. If you are thirsty or your blood-sugar level drops and you don’t have any supplies with you, the trip is going to turn into a very unpleasant experience!

2. Enjoy the View from the Canopy Walkway // Élvezd a kilátást a lombkorona sétányról

Canopy Walkway (Photo by Will)

This famous canopy walkway hangs 40m above ground level and it is 530m long, which makes it the longest treetop walk in the world. Despite the fact that it’s built along the path towards Bukit Teresek, we decided to stop and check it out on our way back from the hill. The reason for this was that when we first caught a glimpse of the canopy walkway, there was a group of at least 30 kids walking through it and making the whole structure swing like mad. By the way, I have no idea how did they manage to get there before us, since we left way earlier than any of the groups.

I had a feeling that I’m not gonna be able to walk through it all the way to the end, because I can’t really stand such swinging and unstable structures. I managed to reach the first tree and I gave this project up. Will decided to proceed on his own, while I suffered some mini panic attacks until I managed to crawl back to the starting point. The guards seemed to be quite amused and tried to mock me a bit because of my failure, but I couldn’t care less. I was happy I managed to get off of that thing.

After we left our house and passed by the hotel restaurant and the main building, we found ourselves back in the jungle, surrounded by lots of trees and dense creepers. The wooden walkway and staircase system was less built-up than towards Bukit Teresek, so we ended up stumbling through the roots of the trees more often.

Despite the fact that we were wearing our bathing suits, once at Lubok Simpon, we didn’t really feel the urge to swim. Don’t get me wrong, there was no problem with the water whatsoever: it was as clear as advertised, it not more. The problem was that we didn’t really want the hassle of getting wet, then trying to dry ourselves while having to get rid of all the sand and small stones stuck to our feet in order to put our socks and shoes back, etc. In the end we decided to just take some photos and relax a bit in the shadow.

After traversing the bridge we noticed that the path is more and more narrow and the vegetation is thicker and thicker. Soon, I told Will that I don’t really feel that safe anymore, and I’d like to turn back. He, on the other hand, tried to encourage me to continue exploring a bit more, because “everything is so beautiful here!”. As soon as he finished this sentence, something started to move in the bushes. Will stopped and looked towards the direction of the noise, after which he said: “Oh dear!”. At that moment I thought we are dead. I saw my life flash in front of my eyes and I accepted the fact that the next thing he will say is “Tiger!”. After this we’ll end up as premium cat food. I wasn’t right. Instead of all these Will said: “Look! Two wild boars!”. They were staring at us with their heads held up high and they must have said to each other: “Look at these two weirdos! What the heck do they want? Let’s just go!”. After a few moments they jogged away. I think I don’t have to explain why I don’t have any photos of this particular event. Anyway, after meeting the wild boars we turned back!

Later on, when we told the manager of the resort about our wild boar experience, he showed us a photo taken by some guests at Lubok Simpon two months earlier by some guests . The most interesting part of the photo was an orange-black striped kitty, drinking water from the river. Yep. He must have been very thirsty, so he came down to the river and stood just a few meters away from the people. After slaking his thirst, he disappeared in the forest. This means that I was right: our peaceful little wild boars could have easily been some tigers instead!

When we checked in to the resort, some of the most important warnings were monkey-related, such as not to leave anything on the terrace of the little hut because monkeys are thieves, and not to leave our windows open because we will sleep with monkeys. Additionally, we should hold everything we have in our hands very tightly.

Our first memorable meet-up with the big monkey-family was on the morning after our arrival. I mean, it was dawn really. That morning the rooftop of our little hut was part of the otherwise constantly changing monkey-highway. Waking up to the noise of at least twenty monkeys landing on the rooftop right above our heads like some giant overripe fruit was quite a unique experience. Because both of us like consider ourselves photographers, we grabbed our cameras and ran outside. After the noisy landing the macaques calmed down, and they were peacefully sitting on our rooftop, on the surrounding trees and in the grass. I started to shoot enthusiastically, but very soon I realised that taking my lens from the air-conditioned room into the hot and moist air will result in condensation. Therefore, the photo session consisted of the following steps: “Monkey, could you please stop moving around? Thank you!” – Click – Wipe – Repeat. Despite this pain, I managed to create some cool images.

The other monkey-attack took place very close to the little shop of our resort. This shop sells mainly chocolate, biscuits, crisps, ice cream and canned drinks. The incident happened when a lady and her son left the shop with a bag full of delicacies. They must have tried to get ready for a hike. The mom wanted to find the key of the house in her bag, so she gave the shopping bag to her son. The monkeys were carefully watching them. The moment the kid got the bag full of food, they jumped off the surrounding trees, grabbed it and ran under one of the houses (all the buildings of the resort stand on short poles). They ripped all the packaging apart and they started eating like they haven’t seen food for at least a week. After they finished everything, they repositioned themselves to a hut-terrace and started sunbathing.

5. Visit a Hide // Látogass el egy magaslesre

Tahan Hide (Photo by Will)

Around the resort there are several different hides positioned very strategically, overlooking some sort of glade, river or feeding spot. Tahan Hide is the closest one to the huts. One evening, after dinner, we decided to give it a go, climb up to the hide and see if we can spot some wild creatures.

For a very long time nothing happened. We almost decided to return to the house and go to sleep when two wild boars ran into the glade from the left hand side. They stopped around the tree, sniffled into the air with their noses held up high, after which they ran away towards the right hand side. Meanwhile, it turned very dark, so we climbed down and tried to find the correct path back to our hut. Suddenly, Will stopped and pointed towards some shadows moving around in the grass: “Look! The monkeys!”. I was nictitating for a while in order to see what the monkeys were doing, because it felt a bit suspicious that monkeys don’t really do any kind of business on the ground after getting dark. And then I realised: they weren’t monkeys! They were the two wild boars we saw earlier from the hide! They were smart and knew that where there are buildings, there are people as well, and where there are people, there is readily available food!